Friday 11 May 2012 14.02 EDT
First published on Friday 11 May 2012 14.02 EDT

An American producer may have once joked that British theatre was entirely run by "men called Peter", but in a welcome step towards diversification the Royal Court has announced it is to appoint the first female artistic director in its 56-year history.

Strikingly, too, Vicky Featherstone, 45, arrives from 400 miles outside London, having run for the last six years the fledgling National Theatre of Scotland.

The Royal Court has long been flagbearer for new British drama, responsible for launching the careers of writers as varied as John Osborne and Sarah Kane. Under its founding artistic director, George Devine, the Court hatched the so-called kitchen sink generation that included Arnold Wesker, before becoming in the 1970s a crucible for hard-hitting political theatre.

Featherstone's appointment is significant because of a widely held perception that too many top arts jobs are still held by white men. The National Theatre's last four artistic directors have been Cambridge-educated males, and there were widespread rumours that not a single woman applied for the recently advertised post of artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company – rumours that the theatre refused to confirm. In the end, the job went to the RSC insider Gregory Doran.

Still, in the last six months two women, Josie Rourke and Indhu Rubasingham, have taken over as artistic directors of two leading London theatres, the Donmar Warehouse and the Tricycle respectively, and another young director, Madani Younis, son of a Pakistani Royal Mail driver and a Trinidadian teacher, has taken over at the Bush theatre in west London.

Featherstone's appointment seemed to take the theatre community by surprise, but was greeted warmly. Gemma Bodinetz, who runs Liverpool's Playhouse and Everyman theatres, told the Guardian: "For the Royal Court to have a woman running it feels long overdue. For a long time, if you thought of artistic directors you thought of a shaven-headed man wearing an Armani suit with a goatee. The Royal Court is one of the bastions of British theatre, just like the National or the RSC. There is a symbolism for a woman to run a theatre like that."

The playwright David Eldridge, whose In Basildon has recently played to rave reviews at the Court, said: "Vicky Featherstone is a first-rate director and producer, genuinely believes in the centrality of the playwright to our theatre culture and is a terrific woman who inspires the trust of writers who know her and work with her."

One of Featherstone's predecessors at the Court, Ian Rickson, said: "I think her sense of politics and the important things in the world is entirely apt. The Royal Court needs to be run with that antenna." He said the job was one of the toughest in UK theatre. "It's like being England manager," he said. "Everyone cares having that theatre so strong – yet you have to run it willfully and purposefully. I wish her the best of luck."

In her Scottish job Featherstone has been praised for productions ranging from a site-specific, globe-trotting piece about the Black Watch regiment's fractured role in Iraq to a verbatim play called Enquirer, a timely examination of the British media and its misdeeds.

She said in a statement: "These are challenging times. Now more than ever we need places where reflection, question and visceral experience can elevate the daily and the private and remind us of our humanity and universality."

Cooke said: "I look forward to seeing where she takes the company next."

Vicky Featherstone is wary of revealing any new 'vision' as the first female director of the Royal Court – more important to 'create an environment in which writers can surprise themselves,' she tells Rachel Cooke